Experiential wine education and real conversation over a virtual glass of wine

Harvest is Here!

August 14, 2007

I got an e-mail from my friend Jason yesterday asking for advice on preserving tomatoes. Poor thing (envious sarcasm there) is going to Europe for three weeks just as his tomatoes are coming into their own. He’d gotten some great canning advice from Kalyn’s Kitchen, but I admitted to him that I’m a bit intimidated by canning and often take the easy route myself—slow roasting and freezing. When he shot back saying he was already envisioning a roasted tomato and goat cheese bruschetta with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, I got all riled up on the subject and set out to write a post on prolonging the pleasures of the tomato when I got another e-mail, this one from Eriktelling me that Keith was bringing in the first grapes of the season—Sauvignon Blanc—and inviting me to come toast the harvest with them.

It seems the Sauvignon Blanc beat out the Tomato for this post.

So this morning, I finished scraping the last of the scrambled eggs and frijoles off Noe and trundled her out to the truck. It was foggy when I awoke, but by the time we got up the road to Clos du Bois, there was just a chalk line of it left floating below the bumps of Mount Saint Helena and Geyser Peak. The vineyards themselves even had a sort of greeny-gold, Sauvignon Blanc-esque sheen to them in the morning sunlight.

Noe had shrugged off her jean jacket by the time I had her in the sling (I swear I caught her rolling her eyes) and we joined the Clos du Bois crew and hoisted a glass of OJ (well, I did) to the newest of the new vintage. It’s such a unique feeling being there for the first day of harvest. There’s a buzz, an effervescence. Everyone knows that the next two months or so are going to be brutal as one block after another ripens and has to be brought in. But for this first one, the joy of anticipation seems to outweigh the prospect of exhaustion.

One by one the trucks—heaped with grapes that Keith and his teamhad picked way early this morning while it was still cool—came through the crush pad and unloaded their fruit into the hopper. I was surprised at how in tact the grapes were, and Jason and I both commented on how much juice their was. Erik said that by nature, Sauvignon Blanc is a juicy grape, and that if it were Chardonnay in the hopper we wouldn’t be seeing nearly as much juice.

At this point in the season, Erik is out in the vineyards daily testing for ripeness. We’ve been spared the heat waves of previous years (man, I hope I didn’t just jinx us all) and Erik says that the more temperate weather has made for a gorgeous, consistent canopyand beautiful fruit. I hope for his sake it also means a staggered harvest . . . you never know when a hot day will hit and several blocks will ripen at once, which means some serious long hours for the crews.

Somewhere around 9:00 the last truck rolled through and the OJ was polished off. As I was driving back home and Noe was sawing logs in her car seat (on the ever-so-long five minute trip), an odd fact occurred to me; the harvest season is literally punctuated by “Sauvignon,” the word . . . it begins with Sauvignon Blanc and ends with the Cabernet Sauvignon.

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3 Responses to “Harvest is Here!”

Beautiful photos and writing, Lia! Can’t wait to read more about tomatoes. My aunt and I might be trying Kalyn’s slow-roasted tomatoes soon as it seems like everywhere I turn, someone is offering up lots of free tomatoes 🙂